A Tale of Yellow Roses
by miabria
Summary: Reno tries to ask Elena on a date by giving her a bouquet of roses. He thinks he's being completely romantic, but she doesn't read it quite the same way...


It wasn't hard for Reno to imagine his current situation going horribly wrong. He had just returned from a rather awkward lunch with his best friend and partner-in-crime Rude and was dreading the circumstances that came afterward. The lunch had been awkward because Rude had finally admitted to Reno that he knew about his crush on Elena. Reno spent a few minutes trying to convince Rude it was all hearsay, but after admitting defeat and deciding Rude actually knew, Reno had to ask for advice.

Which brought him here. Standing in front of Elena's office. With a bouquet of yellow roses. He imagined this conversation could go many ways, but two seemed the most likely. She would either accept his feelings and admit her own towards him, or she would flat out reject him. There were millions of different scenarios he could think of on how either of those options played out, but nothing would happen if he just stood there.

Tentatively, he knocked on her door. It seemed like hours, when in fact it had only been no more than two minutes before he knocked again. Maybe she wasn't in her office and he could just forget this whole thing and drop this silly crush he had on the Rookie. However, he had no such luck. Elena opened the door just as he was about to walk away and when he saw her, his heart leapt up and got stuck in his throat. Normally, he was pretty good about controlling the butterflies in his stomach when he was around her, but seeing the way she was smiling up at him now, he could hardly speak.

"Reno?" Elena asked, looking at the flowers, "Are those for me?"

Reno rubbed the back of his head nervously and held the yellow roses out for her. "Rude told me you were having a pretty rough day." He laughed nervously.

Elena's smile grew wider. "Aw, Reno, that's so sweet!" She took the flowers from Reno's outstretched hand. "Thank you so much! You certainly did a great job of brightening my day."

"Glad to hear it." He didn't know what to say. He wasn't sure if he should tell her how he felt or if he should let her connect the dots herself. Roses were the most romantic flowers there were and yellow was Elena's favorite color. Surly she would get the hint, right?

"Sorry to cut a conversation short, but I need to get back to work." No. She did not get the hint. Elena closed the door to her office and Reno was left standing in the hallway, sans flowers.

Surly she knew the flowers had been a romantic gesture, right? He wasn't that nice to her that flowers would seem like a friendly thing. In fact, most of the time he tended to pick on her just because he enjoyed watching her expressions when he did. He always thought he kind of annoyed her. So why would she just assume his flowers had no romantic connotations? Maybe he should have written a note to go along with them…

* * *

Later in the day, Elena had decided to take a break from her paperwork and walk down to to lounge area where she found Rude. She couldn't help but tell him about how Reno brought her flowers because it truly had been the highlight of her day. It was so out of character for him and it made her feel good that he cared enough to cheer her up when she was having a bad day.

"What did you tell him?" Rude asked.

"Thank you…?" Elena was slightly confused by the inquiry. "What else was I supposed to say?"

Rude shrugged his shoulders. "What did he say?"

"That you told him I was having a bad day."

"That all?"

Elena was still confused by the questioning. "Yeah." She could have sworn she heard Rude mutter the word "idiot" after sighing quietly.

"What's going on? Was he supposed to say something else?" She wasn't letting this go. There was something about this whole thing that obviously wasn't clear to her.

"Let me ask you this," Rude said after a long silence, "what did you assume the flowers to mean?"

That was kind of an odd question, she thought. She shrugged and said, "I don't know. A friendly gesture?"

Rude chuckled softly to himself and Elena was becoming irritated that he wouldn't just tell her what was going on with the flowers.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She put her hands on her hips, hoping to emphasize that she was done playing these games.

Rude just shook his head and told her, "Go ask Reno."

* * *

Reno jolted from staring at his blank computer screen when he heard a loud knock on his doorframe. Standing in front of him was Elena, and she looked annoyed.

"Uh… hey," Reno said with slight worry. "What's up?"

"Why don't I ask you what's up with the flowers?"

Reno paled and looked more worried than he already was. "Is there something wrong with them?" Maybe the florist didn't remove the thorns like they were supposed to. Maybe there were bugs eating away at the leaves. Whatever it was, he didn't know and Elena seemed rather upset about it.

"No, but Rude seemed to be suggesting earlier that there was an ulterior motive behind them." She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him expectantly.

If she didn't get the hint before, now was his chance to ask her out. He stood up from his chair, rounded his desk, and leaned against the edge of it so he was a little closer to Elena.

"Uh, yeah… Actually," he rubbed the back of his neck and laughed nervously, "Dinner?"

Elena became noticeably angrier and Reno started to panic. What had he done wrong?

"Dinner!?" She yelled. "You think just because you get me flowers, I owe you dinner?"  
Reno sighed in relief when he realized she simply misunderstood. He stepped closer to her and watched as her anger mixed with impatience. She was waiting for him to answer. He couldn't help but chuckle. She was cute when she was angry and the fact that she was so clueless made the situation all the funnier.

"Why are you laughing? I want an explanation. I know I'm a bit of a pushover at times, but you can't seriously think you could use me like that just to get a free meal out of me! Are you out of your-"

"I meant," Reno cut her off, holding up a hand to silence her, "Will you have dinner with me? Like a date. I'll pay."

Elena's anger turned to shock and she stood in the doorway, silent. "Um… I… What?"

"Dinner. With me. Friday at eight?"

There was a long silence from Elena before she answered, "Sure."

Reno was relieved. He had to admit, he was stupid to not have asked her earlier, and Elena pointed that out to him.

"Why didn't you ask me when you gave me the flowers?" She laughed when Reno scratched the back of his neck again in nervousness.

"I kinda thought you would've understood that the flowers were a romantic gesture."

Elena laughed again, louder this time and longer.

"Hey!" Reno protested, "I know I can be a bit dense at times, but usually when someone gives you flowers, it's because they're trying to ask you on a date!"

When Elena finally calmed down her laughter she explained, "How was I supposed to read it as a romantic gesture? Especially when the flowers were paired with 'I knew you were having a bad day'? It seemed out of character for you to go out of your way to do something nice for me, but it didn't seem like anything more than a friend trying to cheer another friend up."

Reno crossed his arms and looked at her with annoyed disbelief. She laughed once again and walked closer to him. "It was very sweet though," she said softly and kissed him on the cheek.

"You think so?" He said, smiling.

"I do," Elena giggled and looked at Reno, "However, for future reference, when you get yellow roses for someone, it means you just want to be friends." She laughed harder at the wide-eyed expression on Reno's face.

"Dammit!"

* * *

 _Just a quick little authors's note here: The inspiration for this story came from a vase of yellow roses I had sitting next to me. I thought about how they symbolized friendship and thought about how Reno would get Elena flowers and she would totally misread it. I do rather enjoy this ship, so I thought I'd write a cute, fluffy story about them having a misunderstanding about what the flowers mean. I hope you enjoyed this short little story!_

 _If you have any comments about my story, please leave a comment. If you have any ideas for future stories you would like to see from me, let me know through the comments or PM. Or if you simply want to chat, hit me up in my PM. It's always open and I'm always willing to have a nice conversation with someone._

 _Thanks for reading. :)_


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